"The more power the left gains, the more vociferously will entrenched interests fight back. We better have a lot more in our arsenal than sarcasm and call-outs. Twitter is exactly the wrong place to prepare.

A few accounts miraculously navigate this poisoned discursive terrain adroitly. @BlackSocialists comes immediately to mind. They do Twitter "wrong" and it's wonderful to see.

That sort of patient, clear, drama- and hyperbole-free presentation is something to learn from. Stick to the principles, stick to the material analysis, dodge around the feints and discursive traps of the opposition.

These are skills we have to put real effort into learning, but then, they don't call it a fight or a struggle because it comes automatically, right? These rhetorical skills are part of our basic training.

Going for the sick own, the oh-snap fireworks, is about your own personal brand, your lil ego, & that, folks, is commodification in action. Socialism isn't about you-as-atomized-individual. It's about us, building understanding, seeing above the spectacle, gaining power together."

"Let’s dissect the term and/or concept of “white privilege” and how it has been mistakenly used over the last few years by Liberals, Conservatives, and confused Leftists drawn into misinformation and propaganda (once and for all).

You might want to bookmark this thread.

We want to begin by recommending that “white” Americans new to the idea of Socialism read both volumes of Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” before even THINKING about cracking into “Das Kapital” or any of the Socialist “classics”:

More Black Socialists of America Retweeted Black Socialists of America
In order to engage with this discussion, it is imperative that you first understand WHY we refer to “race” as a “social construct,” and understand how it differs from “ethnicity.”

Peep the thread below as an intro to “race vs. ethnicity” when/if you can.

You’ve heard the cliché, “there’s only one race: the human race,” and it is TRUE, but society does not reflect this reality yet, for those supporting white supremacy (an IDEA) want a place in the racial/socioeconomic hierarchy instead of destroying the hierarchy altogether.

When the first Africans arrived in VA in 1619, there were no “white” people there with them, but “British” people.

According to colonial records, there wouldn’t be “white” people there for another 60 years.

The hands of imperialism extended from ETHNO-STATES; not RACIAL groups.

[two images]

Other Europeans coming to America?

Poorer Europeans coming to America?

Potential for poor and working class solidarity?

“Oh no,” the ruling-class Europeans thought.

💡

“Let’s construct a racial hierarchy; the psychological ‘wage’ we give whites will divide the proletariat.”

[three charts]

One could compare British rule in Ireland with a similar form of “white” oppression of Indigenous and Black Americans, but Irish immigrants fleeing persecution learned to SPREAD racial oppression in their adoptive country as a part of “white” American assimilation.

Unfortunate.

[four images]

“White privilege” has enforced the myth of racial superiority; this has been central to maintaining RULING-CLASS domination over poor and working class people of ALL colors throughout AMERICAN history.

Now that we have this established, let’s comment on “white privilege” (the term) as it was originally COINED and used by Theodore W. Allen in the 1960s, and as it is popularly (and mistakenly) misused today in 2018.

[image]

“White privilege” was originally referred to as “white skin privilege,” and it was a term coined by Theodore W. Allen under a class-based analysis.

What happens when you remove the class-based analysis?

You get Capitalist control of the narrative, and more division as a result.

What Liberal and Conservative media have done is create a dynamic where poor and working class white Americans don’t feel as though they have any room to move in solidarity with poor and working class Black Americans, and vice versa; common “SJW” RHETORIC deepens these rifts.

When egoists throw out terms like “check your privilege,” they seem more concerned with placing white Americans in a lose-lose situation instead of highlighting a ceding of power to the ruling class based upon manufactured social structures, and creating a pathway for solidarity.

Explanations for white supremacy that only rely on “biology” or attribute it to benefits gained by all “white” Americans are fundamentally incomplete, for they analyze “race” within a vacuum; there is always a socioeconomic component that must be addressed in this conversation.

W.E.B. DuBois said in “Black Reconstruction”:

(1) "Race was supplemented by a carefully planned and slowly evolved method, which drove such a wedge between the white and black workers..."

(2) “There prob­a­bly are not today in the world two groups of work­ers with practically identical interests who hate and fear each other so deeply and persistently and who are kept so far apart that neither sees anything of common interest.”

Phrases like “check your privilege” are commonly used today, but NOT to speak to the reality that poor and working class white Americans are ceding power to Capitalist exploiters who couldn’t care less about them (or us).

We must address the ILLUSION of “race” FIRST.

We agree with Allen; the “white race” must be understood, not simply as a social construct (as opposed to a genetic phenomenon), but as a “ruling class social control formation.”

“RACE” and “WHITE PRIVILEGE” are “RULING CLASS SOCIAL CONTROL FORMATIONS” (divide and conquer).

Noel Ignatiev, author of “How the Irish Became White,” has a great quote that we’ll end this thread with:

(1) “The ending of white supremacy is not solely a demand of the Negro people, separate from the class demands of the entire working class.”

(2) “It cannot be left to the Negro people to fight it alone, while the white workers 'sympathize with their fight,' 'support it,' 'reject racist slanders' etc. but actually fight for their 'own' demands."

(3) “The ideology of white chauvinism is bourgeois poison aimed primarily at the white workers, utilized as a weapon by the ruling class to subjugate black and white workers."

(4) "It has its material base in the practice of white supremacy, which is a crime not merely against non-whites but against the entire proletariat. Therefore, its elimination certainly qualifies as one of the class demands of the entire working class."

(5) "In fact, considering the role that this vile practice has historically played in holding back the struggle of the American working class, the fight against white supremacy becomes the central immediate task of the entire working class."

When we say we’re fighting against “white supremacy,” we’re talking about fighting against an IDEA and STRUCTURE; an idea and structure that has left poor and working class Blacks and whites in conflict for centuries instead of rising up against their Capitalist oppressors.

Black Americans and “white” (European) Americans are not monoliths; we are prepared to move through all divisions to bring all poor and working class peoples within America to a multiethnic plane of direct action that sheds the Capitalist system from human existence.

'Free medical, vision and dental care. Free housing. Free college education. Guaranteed jobs. These are some of the items included in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ platform. Her constituency wanted these free things, and so she was elected to represent them in Congress. -- She combines all this free stuff with open borders. In other words, everyone in the world is welcome to come here and enjoy her offer of free stuff. This is a sure recipe for economic disaster. People have to work in order to provide this free stuff. Will doctors work for free? No. Will homebuilders build housing for free? No. Will professors teach for free? No. So it means much higher taxes. It means more government force. The doctors, homebuilders, and professors may still work, but they will not be rewarded for their efforts. Instead, a Cortez-led government will take most of their money away and redistribute it in order to make things ‘fair and equal.’ -- The problem is, when government breaks the link between effort and reward, less effort becomes inevitable. Stalin thought he had solved this problem by forcing 10 percent of his country’s population into gulags. There, his slaves were forced to work hard or die. If there is no force, there’s a situation where workers pretend to work and their government pretends to pay them. -- ... Ocasio-Cortez is the young, new, and energetic face of socialism. She coins her approach as something novel: ‘Democratic Socialism,’ but a skunk cabbage by any other name will still have the offensive smell. It’s the same old, tired Marxism that has failed again and again for over a hundred years. The most recent example is Venezuela. A once prosperous country, it embraced socialism and as a result its citizens are now starving. Alexandria ignores this and talks heroically about cotton candy, unicorns and flowing rivers of chocolate. She’s not a hero. Put her in charge of a chocolate factory and it would soon be producing rotten eggs.'

'...Chinese telecom giant ZTE is helping the socialist dictatorship in Venezuela implement a social credit system similar to Beijing’s through its ration cards, Reuters revealed Thursday. -- According to Reuters, Nicolás Maduro regime’s recent release of the “Carnet de la Patria,” or “Fatherland Card,” to all citizens forms part of a plan to develop widespread control over the population. Venezuelans have needed a card for access to subsidized food, healthcare, and gasoline since 2014. The Maduro regime has recruited China to help the cards expand their use not just to track what citizens eat, but their social, political, and economic behavior. -- Last year, the report claims, the Venezuelan regime spent $70 million on hiring ZTE to help develop their project in a supposed effort to bolster “national security.” Now, a team of ZTE engineers is reportedly working in Caracas at a special unit within the Venezuelan state telecommunications company Cantv to help build a more sophisticated database. -- Some of the information already stored on the database reportedly includes “birthdays, family information, employment and income, property owned, medical history, state benefits received, presence on social media, membership of a political party and whether a person voted.”'

"You can tax good decisions; you can't tax bad decisions...Whatever you tax, you diminish; whatever you subsidize, you increase. When you tax good decisions and you subsidize bad decisions you end up in a society where fewer people make good decisions and more and more people make bad decisions. And where does that end?"

An underrated, fascinating perspective. States use cenotaphs as shields against criticism; while I was vaguely aware of that before, I always thought it was metaphorical rather than literally as a physical barrier.